Vrin: Ten Mortal Gods

by John Michael Hileman

001001011001110

  Inside, the light was warm and inviting. Annie had always possessed a keen eye for interior decoration. Rectangular cedar pillars held up thick rustic beams, which crossed back and forth in the spacious ceiling above. To the left, was the kitchen, to the right, a sunken living room, and straight in front of us, stairs leading up to a loft.

  Annie helped me to a comfortable seat next to the kitchen table. I gripped the arms weakly and sat down.

  “Be right back,” said Rebecca, heading up the stairs.

  “Can I get you anything?” asked Annie. Her face was still flush from our unexpectedly tearful reunion.

  “A cup of tea would be nice. Earl...”

  “Grey,” she finished. “Yes. I remember.”

  I watched in silence as she pulled a cup from the cupboard. She was still very beautiful. The years had been far more gracious to her than they had been to me. Her face had thickened slightly and there was a hint of gray in her blonde hair, but other than that, she hadn’t changed much at all.

  “How are you feeling?” Samuel came in and leaned against the counter.

  “Better than I ever could have hoped.” I scanned the room. “This is a nice place.”

  “Mom has great taste.” He smiled, but this smile was more pensive than his earlier ones. “Under better circumstances, I would bring you down and show you the lake. In the evening, it’s beautiful when the moon shines on it. And you can catch fish as big as your arm.”

  I nodded. “Under better circumstances, I would enjoy that.”

  “Here you go.” Annie placed a steaming cup in front of me.

  I looked up at her. “That was fast.”

  “I used the TLD, it only takes a few seconds.”

  “Oh.” I looked around. There were several devices on the counter I didn’t recognize.

  Annie took a hesitant step back. “Do you-- want to talk about it?” Her eyes studied me intently.

  “What? the lab?”

  “Everything. I mean... You’ve been practically dead for twenty-one years, and now out of the blue you wake up. And we’re getting mysterious calls early in the morning.” Her face tightened. “What’s going on? Becky said your life was in danger?”

  “I don’t know. Dr. Solomon couldn’t tell me much. He said the government had stepped in, something about them wanting to undermine the project-? I asked him why but he said he didn’t know.” I paused and thought a moment. “He said they were afraid of what they might discover inside the minds of the patients.” I glanced up at Annie. She looked baffled.

  Samuel spoke up. “Why? What’s inside the minds of the patients?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember anything?”

  “No. There are feelings, but they’re faint. I don’t remember being in the coma. I remember New York, and then waking up in the lab.” I looked from Samuel to Annie. “What happened? How did I end up in a lab?”

  Annie pulled out a kitchen chair, sat down, and looked thoughtful. After a moment, she spoke. “Do you remember the accident?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Well, you suffered severe damage to your head and was diagnosed with terminal brain failure. So I started looking for a specialist, and I found one in Fresno. He couldn’t do much for you, but he was the one who told us about the center, and about how they were developing a way to communicate with patients like you. So I called and talked to Dr. Solomon. He didn’t promise anything, but it was the best option available.”

  “Tell him about the forms,” said Sam.

  “Yes. There were a lot of forms, stacks of them. They wanted to know every last detail of your life, right down to your childhood memories. It took weeks to get them all filled out.”

  “Tell him about the programmer thing.”

  Annie gave Sam a look that said, I can handle this. He put his hands up in surrender. She looked back at me. “A friend of mine told me about a man she knew who was rejected because he was a programmer. And since I didn’t want there to be any chance of you being rejected too, especially after filling out all of those papers...” She gave a sheepish look. “I lied on the forms. I told them you were a fireman who had inherited a hefty trust fund.” She gave a wan smile.

  “So that’s what Solomon meant,” I said under my breath.

  “What’s that?”

  “Solomon made some comment about me climbing ladders. Now I know why.”

  “Oh.” She chuckled. “Well, I wanted to make sure you got in. And you did.” She smiled. “So apparently they didn’t have a problem with firefighters. --Anyway, I couldn’t be there when you were admitted because I was in labor with Sam...”

  There were no emotions in the subtle lines of her face, only reflection. Apparently she had long since come to terms with the trauma.

  “But when he was three weeks old I went to see you. That’s when I learned they were going to try a new technique to see if they could talk directly to your brain.”

  “Yes. Solomon spoke of that. Sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi movie.”

  “I know. Exactly. But they were serious, and they seemed confident that it could be done. So, every month for the last twenty-one years, I’ve received a report from the center, detailed reports with graphs and statistics.” She shrugged. “Most of it I don’t understand. But there was never anything to make me suspicious about what was going on.”

  “Not even when the government took over?”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “No. They had always provided the best care possible, and I saw no reason to worry. Solomon told me of the government’s interest in the project, and that they were offering to reduce our cost. That was fine with me.

  “So you never saw anything out of the ordinary?”

  “Tell him about the priest, Mom,” said Rebecca. She had come down and was sitting on the stairs.

  “Yeah, that was strange,” said Samuel.

  I looked at Annie. “A priest?”

  She rubbed her palms across the table. “On one of my visits, I overheard two men talking about Father Wentworth, one of the other patients. Solomon always referred to him fondly as, ‘the religious component.’ He said all the patients added something to the world you were creating together, and that his contribution was religion. Anyway, Father Wentworth...”

  “W-wait a minute, sorry to interrupt, but, did you say, ‘the world we were creating’?”

  She shrugged. “I still don’t really understand it. But Solomon said the virtual world he had created was changing on its own. The data indicated that you and the other patients were adding to it and changing it, and that it was hardly the same thing anymore.” She shrugged again. “That’s what they told me.”

  I squinted at her, then shook my head. “O-kay. --So, what about the priest?”

  “Well I guess he didn’t take to the computer very well, and these two men were discussing whether or not he was even in the system. See, each of you had an activity monitor above your bed, and every time your mind told the computer to do something, it would appear on the monitor as a blip. --I used to stare at yours for hours.” Her eyes became distant. “I can’t begin to describe the feeling I would get when it would jump. It was like-- like you were whispering to me from the door of death, telling me you were still there, telling me everything was going to be okay.” Her voice trailed off and she stared at the table. “Anyway.” She shook her head. “Back to the priest. Father Wentworth’s monitor had a single spike, and that was all.”

  “So, he wasn’t responding to the treatment,” I said. “What’s so strange about that?”

  “That’s not the weird part, Thomas. The two men were talking about extracting him from Vrin. And the way they said it, it was like they were going to do it, from the inside. Like they could just go in and get him.”

  Sam interjected. “The voice, Mom, tell him about the voice.”

  “I’m getting to that, Sam.” Annie stood up and walked to the window. “It wasn’t j
ust what they said, Thomas. It was how one of the men talked.” She pulled the curtain aside and looked out. “It was... I know this sounds crazy, but it was like he spoke in another language, but I understood it.” She turned back toward me. “And his face, his face was perfect, not handsome perfect, but, flawless perfect. --And the look he gave me... I’m telling you, Thomas, it made my knees weak. I almost dropped the coffee I was holding. I, I can’t explain it, but-- I don’t think he was of this world.”

  I studied Annie’s face. She was still shaken by the encounter. “When was this?” I asked.

  “A few months ago.”

  “Did you tell Dr. Solomon?”

  “I wasn’t sure what to think, and it wasn’t like he’d done anything wrong. He didn’t say he was going to hurt the priest, just that they should remove him.”

  “Did you ever see him again?”

  “No. I haven’t been back.”

  I gripped my cane tightly and struggled to stand. Samuel helped me to my feet. I moved toward the glass doors to the back patio.

  “So what do we do now?” asked Sam.

  “I say we get out of the country,” said Rebecca. “It’s none of our business what’s going on in that place.”

  I looked out at the lake, hoping to absorb its peacefulness. “Solomon pretended to kill me,” I said “but if they discover my body is not at the morgue, they'll try to find me.” I turned back to look at my family. “That means as long as you’re with me, you’re in danger too.”

  “If you think I’m letting you go anywhere without me, you’re out of your mind,” Samuel asserted.

  “Thomas, we’re in this together. We can all go away until this thing blows over.”

  I stood and looked from Annie, to Rebecca, to Samuel. I didn’t think there was any way this thing was just going to blow over. And although I wanted to be with my family, I couldn’t bear the thought of them being hurt by these people. I didn’t want them involved. But, they were already involved. If I left them behind, they would be in more danger than if I took them with me. I let out a sigh. “Where could we go?”

  Annie straightened up. “Well, like Becky said, I think we should get out of the country. Do you remember Stephen?”

  I shot her a look. “Of course I remember Stephen.” Immediately I gave a look of apology, realizing that her perspective was vastly different from my own. For all I knew, my best friend and business partner could have died years ago.

  “Do you remember that resort we bought him in the Bahamas? Well, he’s done very well for himself and has expanded to five more locations.”

  I let out a breath of relief. “I knew he had a mind for business.”

  “We could go stay in one of his bungalows in Haiti for awhile, until you recuperate.”

  “Haiti?” I grimaced. “Stephen has a resort in Haiti?”

  Annie looked momentarily confused, then said, “Ooohh, you’re remembering the old Haiti. It’s been very stable and very prosperous for a long time now.”

  “Yeah,” Rebecca spoke up. “After the big earthquake and all the rebuilding, Davata Notrals was much more available. That’s when things really changed. Or so I read.”

  I looked at her blankly. “Oh. --Okay. So...” I said, turning back to Annie, “we should go to Stephen’s resort?”

  “Whatever you decide, I'll support you.”

  “Well, my life won't be my own until I find out why those men want me dead.” I shook my head. “I’ll stay until I recuperate, but I’m coming back as soon as possible to find out what’s going on.”

  Annie put her hand on my arm. “Then it’s settled.”

  “Yes.” I looked at each of them. “It’s settled.”

  CHAPTER 20

  SLEEP OF THE DEAD

  001001011001110

  The stewardess passed by on her way to coach.

  “Miss, could I get a glass of water before takeoff?”

  “Sure thing.”

  I looked down at the picture on my new passport. I still couldn’t believe how much I had aged. It would be a long time before I would get used to all the wrinkles. We’d had no trouble getting the passport renewed. --Apparently they hadn’t heard I was dead.

  Annie peered out the window at the sun low on the horizon. It would be dark soon.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “The bad guys,” she said, visibly troubled. She turned and looked at me, as if noticing me for the first time. “How are you feeling?”

  “Exhausted. Like I could sleep for twenty years.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “That’s not funny.”

  “Sorry.” I offered a weak smile. “Humor is the only thing keeping me from breaking down.”

  She gave me a sympathetic look. “This all must be extremely hard on you. I can’t even imagine.”

  “It’s hard on everyone, I would think.”

  “Mom,” said Sam from across the aisle, “when will we be touching down?”

  “10:00 p.m.”

  “Thanks.” He leaned back in to tell Rebecca.

  “Are you sure they should be with us?” I asked.

  “If we left them behind, they'd follow.” She raised her eyebrows. “They have your stubbornness.”

  “You make that sound like a bad thing.” I nudged her. “My stubbornness made us wealthy, even by today’s standards.” I thought back to the airport cafeteria: five bucks for coffee, seven for a danish! Highway robbery!

  “Are you going to try to sleep?” Annie asked.

  “Perhaps a couple of winks. Wake me when we get there.”

  “Okay.” She reached up and waved her hand, the overhead light went off.

  It was going to take a while to get used to the changes in technology. I chuckled to myself as I remembered the incident in the terminal. It didn’t look like a robot before or after I kicked the little bugger over. I thought my bag was snagged on a baggage cart. As far as I was concerned, whoever designed carts with arms and hands should be shot.

  I closed my eyes, but they popped back open. Perhaps the coffee had been a bad idea. I wasn’t going to be doing any sleeping any time soon. I peeked over at Samuel. He was lost in a movie playing on a pair of sunglasses with earphones. There appeared to be a three dimensional aspect to the viewing as well. His head was turning, following some unknown object floating before of him.

  My stomach made a twist. It was becoming painfully obvious that this new world with its gizmos and cutthroat pace would eat me alive if I didn’t get a handle on things. But that wasn’t the only thing bothering me.

  I thought back to the name Vrin. There was, something about it. It sounded so familiar. Maybe it was only that I had heard it spoken repeatedly while I was in the coma-? No. There was something more. Something on the edge of my awareness, just out of reach, a certain uneasiness, an urgency to remember.

  Another disturbing thought pushed forward. Why did these mysterious, government, other-worldly people want me dead? Who was I to them? I couldn’t even remember anything from the experience. And, besides, what kind of threat could ten people interacting in a computer be to anyone? It just didn’t make sense!

  A crick in my back brought me out of my thoughts. Although the airline seat was much softer than its historical counterpart, I could find no comfortable position. My body ached from disuse, and staying in one position for any length of time was not going to be easy. “You asleep?” I whispered to Annie.

  “No. You can’t sleep either?”

  “I’m finding it hard to get comfortable, and my brain is working overtime.”

  “Then let’s catch up,” she said softly.

  For the rest of the flight, we talked. She had all but forgotten many of the things I remembered clearly from the earlier years: details about college, our marriage, starting the businesses, early years with Rebecca... She sat and listened intently as it all came back to her. But then when we got to the the accident, it was her turn to share. She was careful to avoid talking about her second husband, but sh
e told me all about the kids’ growing up, and about how the businesses had grown. It was hours before we touched down, and yet, when the pilot’s voice came over the intercom, we’d barely had time to scratch the surface.

  We left the tiny terminal and took a cab to the ocean. The concierge greeted us at the pier and helped us move our luggage onto a charter boat. As it turned out, our bungalow was out on the ocean somewhere, on stilts, surrounded by water. This was just fine by me, the more secluded the better.

  The night air was cool and refreshing, and it wasn’t long before the coastline disappeared and the quiet silhouettes of several huts appeared before us. Warm yellow light softly emanated through the windows. The water glowed from lights beneath the surface. Mysterious, yet inviting.

  We moored the boat to the front porch of the thatch-roofed bungalow. Rebecca was the first one out. She quickly disappeared inside. “Good! This one has two bathrooms!” she yelled from within.

  The captain of the charter boat didn’t wait for us to tip him but was already heading back to shore. His wake caused our motorboat to bang up against the moorings on the front of the porch.

  I looked at Annie. “I think I’m finally ready to sleep,” I said, stifling a yawn.

  “Yes. I’m only going to stay up for a few more minutes myself. I’m exhausted.”

  “I’ll bet you are.” I gave her a sympathetic look. I started to turn, but stopped and turned back. “Ah, where should I...”

  “You go ahead and take the master bedroom. I’ll stay in Becca’s room, for tonight anyway-- if you don’t mind.”

  “I understand. I’m just glad you want to stay in the same house with me.”

  She smiled sweetly and gave me another hug. “Sleep well, Thomas.” She shook her head. “I still can’t believe you’re back.”

  “Yeah,” said Samuel. “It doesn’t seem real to me either.

  I made my way down the hallway, and gave Rebecca a hug on the way. She kissed me on the cheek. “It’s good to have you back, Dad.”

  “It’s good to be back, Rebecca. I’m sorry I can’t stay up any longer, I guess the coffee finally wore off.”

  “I can’t believe you stayed awake this long.”